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Wednesday, February 2, 2011

What a difference a day makes - by Bruce

Actually a day only makes a 10 degree difference. Woke up this morning to minus 19.2 degrees. Thank goodness there is no wind because the wind chill would be -45 if we had a 10 mph wind. Most folks would wring their hands and utter a lot of oh woe's. We see it as just another day in beautiful Colorado and something to deal with. The frigid cold has unseen benefits too. We have in the spring time a larva called the spruce bud worm. The cycle is that this particular moth lays its eggs early summer, those eggs remain on the ends of the spruce branches until spring. Then this larva hatches and they eat the new growth on the spruce trees and can eventually kill the tree. The larva in the form or a worm has a single thread it uses to repel down from the tree where it morps into this moth that starts the whole process over again. The only effective way to destroy or retard the spruce bud worm is to have frigid cold for a couple days during the winter. It freezes the eggs and kills them. So our cold may seem harsh to some (including the spruce bud worm) but to us it means we won't have those worms and their repelling strands to deal with come spring.


And the temperature inside is 55 degrees thanks to this nice warm wood stove. We had to get up two times during the night to feed it more wood but this morning it was nice and warm inside as opposed to outside. That radiant heat is pure joy when the temperature outside is almost 75 degrees colder than inside. Did I mention that I took the dogs out to do their business and they set a new land speed record for getting out, getting r done, and streaking for the house where they could warm up.

For all our friends who live East of us, its heading your way so stock up on milk and bread, and stay warm.

2 comments:

Ron and Thelma said...

When it's that cold outside how warm can you make it inside. To me 55 is too cold. We are down in South Texas RGV as it is known and it is cold down here Not as cold as you have it or in Fort Wayne, In where wwe live. Snow and Ice there.

Bruce said...

We have it up to 65 now. Actually 55 is cool but not cold. It has something to do with the humidity. I remember when I lived in Fla. and it got down to 36 degrees and I though I would freeze. Or the time the Tangerine Bowl was moved to Gainesville due to construction of the stadium in Orlando. I was bundled up and warm until the guy next to me spilled his drink in my shoe. The kids from Miami of Ohio were in short sleeves and you could have put the entire U of Fla. team on the top of a card table they were huddled together so tight. Guess it depends on humidity and how accustomed you are to the cold. 36 here is sweatshirt weather due to low humidity. We will get the inside temp up to 72 or higher sometime today.